Historic Bohannon tobacco warehouse set to come down
Published 2:00 pm Friday, May 15, 2026
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Heavy equipment clears debris inside the walls of the old J.E. Bohannon Company tobacco warehouse on College Street on Thursday.
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Warren County burley growers Bobby Greenhouse and Willard Cole talk about the future of burley at J.E. Bohannon Co. tobacco warehouse on College Street in January of 1993. (JOE IMEL / Daily News)
A historic building in downtown Bowling Green that once served as the home for the J.E. Bohannon leaf tobacco company appears slated for demolition, despite previous plans from developers calling for the building to be renovated for new uses.
While the developers declined to comment, Bowling Green-based State and Main Realty Group shared a video recently showing a walkthrough of the building. Jonathan Bryant, a local Realtor, appears in the video and said the building will soon “come down” after the cost of rehabilitation was higher than expected.
“As they got further and deeper (in), the building just exposed more and more issues,” he said. “ … Bringing it to modern-day codes (and) being so old would have been very difficult.”
The warehouse opened around 1930 by the J.E. Bohannon Company, a local business specializing in the processing of leaf tobacco. Bowling Green was once a regional hub for tobacco businesses with the Bohannon building one of the few remaining structures from that time.
By 1978, the Bohannon Company closed and a fire severely damaged part of the building in 1988. At that time it was being used as a storage facility for Ironwood Furniture.
The warehouse was acquired by Beech Holdings, LLC in May 2023 along with some other properties in the area. Representatives from Beech Holdings did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Beech planned then to incorporate the warehouse into a larger development along Barren River called “The Launch,” which would span nearly six acres along Center and College Streets, E. Second Avenue and E. Riverview Drive. A rezoning of the area was approved unanimously in 2023.
Patrick Reynolds, a partner in Beech Holdings, said at the time of the rezoning that The Launch and a sister project would fit into a “vastly underutilized” area of town.
A memo from the City County Planning Commission at the time of the zone change states that Beech Holdings would “preserve, remodel and utilize” the warehouse in the development “to the extent feasible.”
Early plans called for a hotel and apartments to be built in the area and the warehouse was set to house a restaurant and a brewery, along with a rooftop bar. “The Launch” would join “The Landing,” another Beech Holdings development also set to go up around Barren River.
Final approval for the rezoning was granted by the Bowling Green city commission unanimously that June. Commissioners at that time expressed excitement over what the future seemed to hold for the tobacco warehouse.
The project qualifies for incentives through Bowling Green’s Tax Increment Financing district and will receive them once complete, Warren County Judge-Executive Doug Gorman said.
Gorman said the demolition does not violate any agreements made with developers.
“The TIF has not been involved with with that preservation,” Gorman said. “The TIF board, they do not get into historic preservation.”
Brent Childers, head of Bowling Green’s Neighborhood and Community Services, told the Daily News on Wednesday that the city is still looking forward to The Launch, even as the warehouse prepares to come down.
He said when he heard the warehouse was slated for demolition, he “wasn’t shocked.”
“It’s … very difficult to take some of these old structures and make them available for modern uses,” Childers said. “A lot of times it is easier and more cost efficient to start with nothing and then build from that.”
Looking forward, Childers said the city is excited to see how the development fits into the area, especially as Riverfront Park continues to evolve.
“One of the goals of the development of Riverfront Park was to create economic development in and around the park,” he said. “So this is helping to achieve one of the main goals that we set out (on).”
About Jack Dobbs
Jack covers city government for the Daily News. Originally from Simpson County, he attended Western Kentucky University and graduated in 2022 with a degree in journalism.
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